The silence in the wake of the dying phones was a physical thing, a third presence in the room that hummed with the low-grade horror of violated privacy and orchestrated fate. The bloody light from the ceiling-hand seemed to beat in time with the anxious pulses in their throats.
It was Marcus Saye who shattered the quiet, not with a shout, but with a voice dripping with a dry, academic mockery. He pushed his glasses up his nose, his gaze a laser pointed at Elijah.
"Tell me this isn't one of those awful, cryptic stunts you used to pull, Eli," he said, the old, familiar nickname a deliberate barb. "The whole 'mysterious texts, abandoned location' bit. It always was your style. Dramatic to a fault."
Elijah didn't flinch, but the stillness that came over him was more threatening than any movement. He turned his head slowly, the red light carving his profile into something statuesque and cold. "I said it once," he replied, his voice low and devoid of all inflection, a flatline of sound. "I am not behind this. If I hear you say it again…"
He didn't finish the threat. He didn't need to. He took a single, deliberate step forward. It wasn't a lunge; it was a statement. The space between them seemed to shrink, charged with a sudden, volatile energy.
Marcus, to his credit, didn't back up. He raised his hands, palms out, in a parody of surrender that was utterly insincere. "Whoa, take it easy, cowboy. Why so tense? Still playing the lone-wolf tough guy act? I thought you'd have grown out of that by now."
He took a half-step of his own forward, closing the gap Elijah had threatened. They stood now barely a foot apart, two opposing magnets of resentment and past history. Chloe could see the tight cord of muscle in Elijah's jaw, the way Marcus's shoulders were set in a stubborn, intellectual defiance.
"Stop it! Both of you!" Chloe moved between them, a fragile barrier of fury and fear. She placed a hand on Elijah's chest, feeling the hammer of his heart against her palm, and glared at Marcus. "Are you insane? We're trapped in a… a Satanic funhouse, our phones just got brain-wiped by a symbol, and you want to pick a fight about style?"
She opened her mouth to launch into a proper, scathing lecture, to dismantle Marcus's arrogance with the cold logic of their situation, but the building itself interrupted her.
From the section of wall where the black, weeping channels converged directly beneath one of the sutured stone eyes, there came a sound. Not a groan or a clank, but a soft, wet, organic schlick, like a suction cup releasing. A vertical seam, previously invisible in the intricate carving, split open. Not with a dramatic swing, but with a slow, viscous parting, as if the wall itself was a curtain of thickened blood being drawn aside. Beyond it was not darkness, but a corridor illuminated by the same pulsating crimson light, stretching into an unseen distance.
The reaction was a study in fractured temperament.
Chloe jolted back, a small gasp catching in her throat. Vivian let out a sharp, clipped scream that she strangled into a whimper, her hands flying to her mouth. Richie Blackwell stared, his athlete's bravado replaced by plain, unvarnished puzzlement, his brow furrowed as if trying to solve a play that made no sense.
Elijah and Marcus, however, broke their glaring contest to look at the new passageway. Their faces were mirrors of a different kind of tension. Elijah's was a mask of intense focus, his eyes scanning the edges of the opening, his body perfectly still, assessing it as both threat and vector. Marcus's expression smoothed into an unnerving, clinical blankness. All trace of his previous mocking irritation vanished, replaced by the detached curiosity of a scientist observing an unexpected result. It was impossible to tell what either was thinking; their interiors were locked down, fortress-tight.
Marcus was the first to speak, his voice now devoid of its earlier taunt. "We should go. Check it out."
"Are you mad?" Vivian hissed, her voice trembling. "It opened by itself! It's clearly a trap! We should stay here, together, and think!"
"Think about what?" Marcus shot back, not looking at her, his eyes still on the corridor. "The decorative philosophy? The compelling interior design choices?" His tone regained an edge, sharpened now and aimed more broadly. "Sitting here is waiting for the next scripted horror. Only scared little children hide and hope the monster gets bored."
He turned then, his gaze sweeping over Vivian's terrified face, Chloe's defiant one, and finally landing on Elijah's impassive stare. A smirk, thin and cruel, touched his lips. He clapped a heavy, patronizing hand on Richie's shoulder. "Richie and I, at least, are men. It's our duty to ensure the safety of the… defenseless feminines." He let the archaic, insulting phrase hang. His eyes locked back on Elijah. "Unlike some. A guy who, from the look of it, might have lost his—"
He never finished the sentence.
The movement was too fast to properly process. One moment Elijah was three feet away, a statue of controlled anger. The next, he had closed the distance, his left hand shooting out to fist itself in the fabric of Marcus's plaid shirt at the collar. There was no theatrical wind-up, no shout—just a brutal, efficient application of force that jerked Marcus forward onto his toes, cutting his words off with a choked guhk.
The change in Elijah was instantaneous and terrifying. It wasn't rage. It was something colder, more professional. The placid lake of his demeanor evaporated, revealing the sharp, volcanic rock beneath. His posture shifted from defensive to predatory, his free hand coming up not in a fist, but positioned near his own centerline, ready to deflect, to strike, to break. The air around him seemed to still and grow heavy. This wasn't a bar fight; this was the promise of dismantlement.
"Run your mouth again," Elijah said, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that carried further than any shout. "See what happens."
Marcus's eyes, wide behind his glasses, flashed with surprise, then outrage. He tried to pull back, to shove Elijah away. He was not a small man, but his struggle was embarrassingly ineffective. He pushed against Elijah's forearm, but it was like pushing against a steel bar set in concrete. He tried to twist free, but Elijah's grip was an implacable vice, the fabric tightening against Marcus's throat. His movements became frantic, undignified—a fish on a line.
And then, as he stared up into Elijah's face, his struggling stilled.
The pulsating light from the ceiling chose that moment to flare. A bright wave of crimson washed over them. In that split second, the light caught in Elijah's eyes. It didn't reflect as a sparkle. It seemed to pool in the irises, turning them into flat, reflective discs of blood-red for a fleeting instant before the light passed. But in that instant, Marcus didn't see anger. He didn't see a threat.
He saw nothing. A void of emotion so complete it was more frightening than any hatred. It was the gaze of something that had seen procedures followed and outcomes met, detached from the human mess in between.
The fight drained from Marcus. His hands, which had been clawing at Elijah's wrist, fell to his sides. A different kind of fear, colder and more rational than the fear of the building, seeped into his expression.
Elijah held the pose for a heartbeat longer, making sure the message was received, engraved. Then he simply opened his hand. He didn't shove; he released. Marcus stumbled back a step, catching himself, his hand going to his throat where the fabric was crumpled.
Vivian, who had been watching with her hand still over her mouth, slowly lowered it. A strange, appraising look crossed her face as she looked from the humiliated Marcus to the now-relaxed Elijah. It wasn't admiration, exactly. It was the look of someone recalculating the hierarchy in the room.
Chloe broke the new silence, her voice firm, aiming to anchor the moment back to something resembling normalcy. "Elijah was in advanced military-track training from the time he was fourteen," she said, the statement directed at no one and everyone. "He's not just a tough fellow. He's… capable. So maybe we stop poking the bear."
Vivian let out a shaky, almost hysterical laugh. "Well," she said, her voice aiming for a light, gossipy tone and landing somewhere near nervous hysteria. She eyed Elijah with that same recalculating look. "Aren't you lucky, Chloe. To have a man who can do… that." The unspoken unlike some hung in the air, aimed at the still-silent Marcus.
Elijah ignored them both. He turned fully to Chloe, the terrifying professional completely gone, replaced by a focused concern. He took her hand, his grip gentle but firm, a stark contrast to the violence of moments before. "Chloe," he said, his voice soft but clear. "That path. It's the only move on the board. Are you okay with going?"
Chloe looked from his worried eyes to the yawning, red-lit passage. Every instinct screamed no. It was a gullet. It was a vein leading into the heart of the madness. She looked at Vivian, who met her gaze with wide, pleading eyes that silently screamed Don't make me go.
Chloe took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she squared her shoulders, and a determined light, fragile but real, kindled in her own eyes. She was a Halvern. Halverns did not cower. "Yes," she said, the word solid. She glanced at Vivian. "Viv?"
Vivian's face cycled through sheer terror, bitter resentment, and finally, resigned defeat. She screamed internally, a wordless shriek of IT'S NOT LIKE YOU PEOPLE LEFT ME ANY CHOICE! But externally, she just gave a tight, jerky nod, her arms wrapped around herself.
"Alright," Elijah said. Without another look at the men, he led Chloe toward the open seam in the wall. Chloe followed, pulling a reluctant Vivian along by her sleeve.
Richie, still standing by a shaken Marcus, finally found his voice. "Hey! So we're just… following them now?"
Marcus finally moved, brushing past Richie without a word. He straightened his glasses, avoided looking at anyone, and walked with stiff, deliberate steps toward the passage, his earlier bravado replaced by a cold, silent fury.
Richie threw his hands up in exasperation. "Unbelievable," he muttered to no one. With a last, scowling look at the oppressive, sigil-etched chamber, as if blaming the room itself for the collapse of his social order, he trudged after the others.
One by one, they passed through the wet, living seam in the wall. It did not close behind them. It remained open, a glowing red mouth, waiting.
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